REVISITED: (From September 8, 2011) Patisco is the Business Communication Software that Defies Categorization

Even Chung can tell you a thing or two about the costs of business miscommunication. In the back and forth emailing between a client and his firm, which sells bicycle parts across the world, his employee omitted a key detail that ended up costing the company a five-figure sum. It is exactly this problem Even is now trying to solve with his software, Patisco. Drawing on his long experience in the field of international trade, he is building Patisco into the end-all-be-all supply chain management software that could have even further reach than he may have imagined.

Patisco founder Even Chung presents Patisco at IDEAS Show in July 2011

How the heck do you describe Patisco? On the surface, it is a piece of supply chain management software, but to call it merely that is a bit of an oversimplification because its potential, which I shall get to in a minute, transcends the un-sexy world of business software. From a consumer’s perspective, it does indeed seem like a handy piece of software that allows a company to send its client’s requirements and specifications to its upstream manufacturers. From the company’s point of view, though, it’s more like a customer relationship management (CRM) software that allows you to clearly manage your downstream orders. Ask anyone in the field how it’s done now and you’ll hear a variety of patchwork solutions that balance email, phone, and fax (really? In 2011?). That may work at a small scale, but as soon as the stream becomes a tributary, you run into problems. Five-figure dollar sum problems.

Patisco, which presented at IDEAS Show in July, merges the patchwork of communication into a single efficient drag-and-drop platform that has built in messaging capabilities. The messages with the client can then be overlayed against the messages with the supplier, creating a communication timeline akin to an iPhone group chat that allows a user to quick check whether all specs have been noted and spot if any communication gaps haven’t been addressed. “You can’t do that with email,” Chung notes.

There are other neat features of the product, like the ability to quickly see the differences between the product descriptions of two extremely similar products. No more scanning through lines of dense technical information just to find trivial details, that this brake lever is anodized and this brake lever has a matte finish. On the flip side, what if the oversight of that trivial detail were to botch the order altogether? The money saved in avoiding a single mistake could pay for a subscription to Patisco, $200 a month for 20 licenses, many times over.

That bulk licensing subscription method adds to the intrigue of Patisco. It allows a supplier to sign up his entire business network at once. Perhaps someone in that network, finding the software particularly handy, signs up his own network as well. Over time, one could envision a web of Patisco-enabled businesses spanning Rotterdam to Shenzhen to Long Beach. What could a startup do with that web, and the information behind it? The network effects of such a scenario unlock vast possibilities, and represent the tantalizing fairy dust surrounding Patisco.

In the extremely un-sexy realm of supply chain management software, how does one go about communicating that potential? In a world of hyped-up consumer startups, the mention of b2b is enough to put some to sleep. This is precisely the problem Patisco has. Is it CRM, supply chain, email tool, or more? For Chung, the difficulty this represents is a challenge and an opportunity of having a truly unique solution. Perhaps this uniqueness is why Chung was granted a patent for the mechanisms behind Patisco, further reenforcing that whatever Patisco is, it’s got potential.